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Is it Friday the 13th?

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Secrets of Death Valley - Mysteries and Haunts
of the Mojave Desert






Global Communications
P.O. Box 753
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It's a mysterious condition that affects tens of thousands worldwide. But what is it?

It all started in August 2007, on a family holiday in New England. Paul had been watching Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix with his wife and two sons, and he had started to itch. His legs, his arms, his torso – it was everywhere. It must be fleas in the seat, he decided.

But the 55-year-old IT executive from Birmingham has been itching ever since, and the mystery of what is wrong with him has only deepened. When Paul rubbed his fingertips over the pimples that dotted his skin, he felt spines. Weird, alien things, like splinters. Then, in 2008, his wife was soothing his back with surgical spirit when the cotton swab she was using gathered a curious blue-black haze from his skin. Paul went out, bought a £40 microscope and examined the cotton. What were those curling, coloured fibres? He Googled the words: "Fibres. Itch. Sting. Skin." And there was his answer. It must be: all the symptoms fitted. He had a new disease called morgellons. The fibres were the product of mysterious creatures that burrow and breed in the body. As he read on, he had no idea that morgellons would turn out to be the worst kind of answer imaginable.

Morgellons was named in 2001 by an American called Mary Leitao, whose son complained of sores around his mouth and the sensation of "bugs". Examining him with a toy microscope, Leitao found him to be covered in unexplained red, blue, black and white fibres. Since then, workers at her Morgellons Research Foundation say they have been contacted by more than 12,000 affected families. Campaign group the Charles E Holman Foundation states there are sufferers in "every continent except Antarctica". Thousands have written to Congress demanding action. In response, more than 40 senators, including Hillary Clinton, John McCain and a pre-presidential Barack Obama, pressured the Centres For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) to investigate; in 2006, it formed a special taskforce, setting aside $1m to study the condition. Sufferers include folk singer Joni Mitchell, who has complained of "this weird incurable disease that seems like it's from outer space... Fibres in a variety of colours protrude out of my skin: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral. Morgellons is a slow, unpredictable killer – a terrorist disease. It will blow up one of your organs, leaving you in bed for a year."

So it's new, frightening and profoundly odd. But if you were to seek the view of the medical establishment, you'd find the strangest fact about this disease: morgellons doesn't exist.

I meet Paul in a pub in a Birmingham suburb. He shows me pictures he's collected of his fibres. On his laptop, a grim parade of images flicks past. There are sores, scabs and nasal hairs, each magnified by a factor of 200. In each photo there is a tiny coloured fibre on or in his skin.

"Is it an excrement?" he asks. "A byproduct? A structure they live in?" A waitress passes with a tray of salad as he points to an oozing wound. "Is it a breathing pipe?"

Paul absent-mindedly digs his nails into a lesion just below the hem of his shorts. Little red welts pepper his legs and arms, some dulled to a waxy maroon, others just plasticky-white scar tissue.

He has seen an array of experts – GPs, allergy doctors, infectious diseases clinicians and dermatologists. Most end up agreeing with the skin specialist to whom he first took samples of his fibre-stained cotton: his sores are self-inflicted and he suffers from delusions of parasitosis (DOP), a psychiatric condition in which people falsely believe themselves to be infested. This particular form of DOP is thought to be unique, in that it's spread through the internet. Whereas in the past, episodes of mass hysteria were limited to small communities – perhaps the most famous being the witch panic in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1690s – today, imagined symptoms can spread much farther on the web.

Paul is not convinced by this diagnosis. He carries an alcohol hand gel everywhere he goes, has four showers a day and steam-cleans his clothes. The stress leaves him exhausted, short-tempered. He has difficulty concentrating or applying himself at work. His lowest points have been "pretty much feeling like ending it. Thinking, could I go through with it? Probably. It's associated with the times the medical profession have dismissed me. It's just… I can't see myself living for ever with this."

Has he mentioned these thoughts to his doctor?

"No, because talking about things like that adds a mental angle – supports the prognosis of DOP. And it's absolutely a physical condition. I mean, look!"

The evidence on his computer does appear convincing. Much thinner than his body hair, the fibres seem to be protruding from his sores. But what are they? And how did they get there? To find out, I'm heading to the 4th Annual Morgellons Conference in Austin, Texas, to meet a molecular biologist who doesn't believe the medical consensus. Rather, he argues, the forensic tests he's commissioned on the fibres point to something altogether more unworldly.

In spring 2005, Randy Wymore, associate professor of pharmacology at Oklahoma State University, stumbled across an article about morgellons. Reading about the fibres sufferers believed were the byproduct of some weird parasite, but which were dismissed by dermatologists as humdrum environmental detritus, he thought, "But this should be easy to figure out." He emailed sufferers, requesting samples, then compared them with samples of cotton, nylon, carpets and curtains. Examining them under the microscope, he got a shock. The sufferers' fibres looked utterly different.

Wymore arranged for fibre analysis at the Tulsa police department's forensic laboratory. Moments into his tests, a detective with 28 years' experience of this sort of work murmured, "I don't think I've ever seen anything like this." The morgellons particles didn't match any of the 800 fibres on their database, nor the 85,000 known organic compounds. He heated one fibre to 600C and was astonished to find it didn't burn. By the day's end, Wymore concluded, "There's something real going on here. Something we don't understand at all."

Last year, he approached several commercial laboratories to run further tests, but the moment they discovered the job was related to morgellons, firm after firm backed out. Finally, Wymore found a lab prepared to take the work. It is these results that will be revealed during the course of the two-day conference.

An hour south of Austin, in the lobby of the Westoak Woods Baptist Church convention centre, morgellons sufferers from the US, UK, Spain, Germany and Mexico gather by the breakfast buffet. Threads of conversation rise from the hubbub: "I mix Vaseline with sulphur and cover my entire body"; "The more you try to prove you're not crazy, the more crazy they think you are"; "The whole medical community is part of this. I wouldn't say it's a conspiracy but…"

Many of the attendees have been diagnosed with DOP, a subject that enrages one of the first speakers – Dr Greg Smith, a paediatrician of 28 years' experience. "Excuse me, people!" he says. "This is morally and ethically wrong! So let me make a political statement, boys and girls." He pulls off his jumper, to reveal a T-shirt reading, "DOP" with a red line through it. "No more!" he shouts above wild applause. "No more!"

Later, Smith tells me he's been a sufferer since 2004. "I put a sweatshirt I'd been wearing in the garden over my arm and there was this intense burning, sticking sensation. I thought it was cactus spines. I began picking to get them out, but it wasn't long before it was all over my body." He describes "almost an obsession. You just can't stop picking. You feel the sensation of something that's trying to come out of your skin. You've just got to get in there. And there's this sense of incredible release when you get something out."

Smith's exposed skin is covered in waxy scars. Although he still itches, his lesions appear to have healed. If, as morgellons patients believe, the sores are not self-inflicted but caused by fibre-creating parasites, how is this possible? "I absolutely positively stopped picking," he says.

That evening, at a nearby Mexican restaurant, I meet Margot, a midwife from Ramsgate who has resorted to bathing in bleach to rid herself of morgellons. She describes how, armed with times-three magnification spectacles, a magnifying glass and a nit comb, she scraped "black specks" from her hair and face on to sticky labels and took them to a dermatologist. She was diagnosed with DOP. "I'm a midwife," she says. "I take urine samples and blood specimens. So I was taking them a specimen. That's what wrecked my life and career."

Next, I corner Randy Wymore. He is a slim man with a charcoal shirt, orange tie and neatly squared goatee. "We have not yet exactly replicated the exact results of the forensics people in Tulsa," he admits. So far, the laboratory has found Wymore's various morgellons fibres to be: nylon; cotton; a blond human hair; a fungal fibre; a rodent hair; and down, most likely from geese or ducks.

"That's disappointing," I say.

He leans his head to one side and smiles. "It is, for the most part, disappointing, but there was a bunch of cellulose that didn't make sense on one. And another was unknown." There's a pause. "Well, they said it was a 'big fungal fibre', but they weren't completely convinced."

The next day, nursing practitioner Dr Ginger Savely, who claims to have treated more than 500 morgellons patients, leads an informal discussion in the conference room. Around large circular tables sit the dismissed and the angry. "I've seen a fibre go into my glasses," says one. "I've seen one burrow into a pad," adds another. "One of my doctors thinks it's nanotechnology"; "I was attacked by a swarm of some type of tiny wasps that seemed to inject parts of their bodies under my skin"; "They have bugs on public transport. Never put your suitcase on the floor of a train."

A furious woman with a big scar on her jaw says, "I have Erin Brockovich's lawyer's number in my purse. Don't you think I'm not going to use it."

"But who are you going to sue?" asks a frail, elderly lady two tables away.

The morgellons believers look expectantly at the indignant litigant. "I don't know," she says.

In a far corner, a woman with a round plaster covering a dry, pinkly scrubbed cheek weeps.

I retire to the lobby to await my allotted chat with Savely. I become aware of a commotion at reception. One of the attendees is complaining loudly: "It's disgusting! Bugs! In the bed. I've already been in two rooms…"

When she's gone, I ask the receptionist if, over the weekend, there has been a surge in complaints about cleanliness. "Oh yeah." She leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. "I think it's part of their condition."

Yet, when we speak, Savely is resolute. "These people are not crazy," she insists. "They're good, solid people who have been dealt a bad lot."

A woman approaches the vending machine behind Savely. Between her hand and the handle of her walking stick is a layer of tissue paper.

There is an element of craziness, I suggest.

"OK, there is," she says, "but it's understandable. For people to say you're delusional is very anxiety-provoking. Then they get depressed. Who wouldn't? The next stage is usually an obsessive-compulsive thing – paying attention to the body in great detail. But, again, I feel this is understandable, in the circumstances."

I slip back into the conference room, where Margot is using her £700 Wi-Fi iPad telescope to examine herself. I have an idea.

"Can I have a go?"

Pushing the lens into my palm, I immediately see a fibre. The group around me falls into a hush. "Did you clean your hand?" Margot asks. She fetches an antibacterial wet-wipe. I scrub and try again. I find an even bigger fibre. I wipe for a second time. And find another one. Margot looks up at me with wet, sorry eyes. "Are you worried?" She puts a comforting hand on my arm. "Oh, don't be worried, Will. I'm sure you haven't got it."

Back in London, I find a 2008 paper on morgellons in the journal Dermatologic Therapy that describes patients picking "at their skin continuously in order to 'extract' an organism"; "obsessive cleaning rituals, showering often" and individuals going "to many physicians, such as infectious disease specialists and dermatologists" – all behaviours "consistent with DOP". (For treatment, the authors recommend prescribing a benign antiparasitic ointment to build trust, and supplementing it with an antipsychotic.) After finding "fibres" on my own hand, I'm fairly satisfied morgellons is some 21st-century genre of OCD spread through the internet and the fibres are – as Wymore's labs report – particles of everyday, miscellaneous stuff: cotton, human hair, rat hair and so on.

There is one element of the condition that's been niggling, though. Both Paul and Greg's morgellons began with an explosion of itching. Now it's affecting me: the night after my meeting with Paul, I couldn't sleep for itching. I had two showers before bed and another in the morning. All through the convention, I am tormented; driven to senseless scratching. Why is itch so infectious?

I contact Dr Anne Louise Oaklander, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and perhaps the only neurologist in the world to specialise in itch. I email her describing morgellons, pointing out it's probably some form of DOP. But when we speak, she knows all about morgellons already. "In my experience, morgellons patients are doing the best they can to make sense of symptoms that are real. They're suffering from a chronic itch disorder that's undiagnosed. They have been maltreated by the medical establishment. And you are welcome to quote me on that," she adds.

In 1987, German researchers found itch wasn't simply the weak form of pain it had always been assumed to be. Rather, they concluded itch has its own separate and dedicated network of nerves. And while a pain nerve has a sensory jurisdiction of roughly a millimetre, an itch nerve can pick up disturbances on the skin over three inches away.

Oaklander surmises that itch evolved as a way for humans instinctively to rid themselves of dangerous insects. When a mosquito lands on your arm and it tickles, this sensation is not the straightforward feeling of its legs pushing on your skin. It is, in fact, a neurological alarm system; one that can go wrong for a variety of reasons – shingles, sciatica, spinal cord tumours or lesions, to name a few. In some cases, it can be triggered, suddenly and severely, without anything touching the skin.

This, Oaklander believes, is what is happening to morgellons patients. "That they have insects on them is a very reasonable conclusion because, to them, it feels no different from how it would if there were insects on them. To your brain, it's exactly the same. So you need to look at what's going on with their nerves. Unfortunately, what can happen is a dermatologist fails to find an explanation and jumps to a psychiatric one."

That's not to say there aren't some patients whose problem is psychiatric, she adds. Others still might suffer delusions in addition to their undiagnosed neuropathic illness. Even so, "It's not up to some primary care physician to conclude that a patient has a major psychiatric disorder."

The CDC is due to publish a long-delayed study on the condition and, if it proves Oaklander's theory correct, this would explain a great deal. Why, for example, Greg Smith's lesions stopped developing when he stopped scratching: because they were self-inflicted. Why I found fibres on my hand: because they are picked up from the environment. What's more, if morgellons is not actually a disease but a combination of symptoms that might have all sorts of different maladies as its source, this squares with something Savely said she's "constantly perplexed about… when I find a treatment that helps one person, it doesn't help the next at all. Every patient is a whole new ball game."

I phone Paul and explain the itch-nerve theory.

"I can't see how that relates to the physical condition," he sighs. "I've got marks on my back that I can't even reach. I've not created those by scratching."

I ask how he has been. "Pretty crap, actually. Been forced out of my job. They said it's 'based on my engagement level', and that's down to the lack of energy I've got. I can't sign myself off sick or as having a degraded performance because morgellons is not a diagnosis. There's no legitimate reason for me not to be operating at full speed."

There's a silence.

"Another thing has been destroyed by this disease," he says finally. "And all because morgellons isn't supposed to exist."

• Some names have been changed.

Source: The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/may/07/morgellons-mysterious-illness

Ancient people knew that wherever the earth’s energy gathered into a vortex was a sacred place. They knew – and scientists are beginning to understand once again today – that we are surrounded by a tremendous amount of energy that has been provided for us by the Creator. It’s available for the asking if we could only learn to harness the forces of the universe in a positive way. Some refer to it as the cosmic flow. We could enter Stargates, learning to travel through space and time, and perhaps power our homes and automobiles at a fraction of the cost of what we spend today.

There are certain places you can “feel it in the air” – where the atmosphere prickles with electricity making your hair stand on end. There are certain sacred spots where the earth vibrates at a higher level. These are earth’s vortex regions, its gateways to other dimensions.

Here is a list of some of the spots which are so mystical that thousands visit them annually so as to mingle with other worldly intelligence. Of course, one has to go to these places very gingerly, very carefully, as there are certain “hazards” which might confront the novice along their spiritual journey.

Sedona – Located in the State of Arizona, in the Great South West, Sedona is the Mecca for New Age orientated travelers. Here for several centuries Native Americans have performed shamanistic rituals drawing on the power generated by the red rocks said to have great healing properties. Landmarks such as Bell and Cathedral Rocks are said to be doorways to another dimension. UFOs have been known to dot the sky and strange beings from other realms often materialize and are caught on film. One of the “hot spots” for UFO sightings known as the Bradshaw Ranch has been purchased by the Department of Land Management and is now “off limits” to tourists. Celebrities such as Shirley MacLaine can often be seen strolling the streets of Sedona. There are many art galleries and metaphysical centers to occupy a person’s time when not doing a bit of backpacking.

Bermuda Triangle - Hundreds of planes and ships have mysteriously vanished in this swirling vortex of ocean situated between Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. Flying into the area, veteran pilots have often reported their navigation equipment going wild. Mysterious balls of light have been seen descending and shooting out of the ocean. Christopher Columbus even reported strange aerial displays in the captain’s log. From time to time, mysterious fogs roll in to land from out at sea and individuals report being drawn almost into a hypnotic trance. Though most scientists are skeptical, there are others who believe such an unknown power can be harnessed and used to our advantage. This is a true Stargate – but some who have entered have not returned to tell the tale.

The Great Pyramid – Egypt’s Pyramid of Giza is the largest structure in the world built by man. Archaeologists contend that the Great Pyramid was used as a burial chamber for the pharoahs. They don’t find it a miracle that the blocks of stone weigh many tons each, and it seems impossible even for hundreds of slaves to move them into their proper position. Believers in the Ancient Astronaut theory say the construction of the Great Pyramid might have come about with the help of extraterrestrials. Arcane researchers have presented many other views including a variety of geophysical, astronomical, numerical, and prophetic interpretations made by explorers, authors, and visitors to the Great Pyramid over the last 200+ years. These interpretations run the range of topics such as the Great Pyramid having been used as a sundial, to the calculation of the speed of light, to the prediction of the exact dates of the birth of Adam, the Exodus, and the birth, baptism, and crucifixion of Jesus. It is perhaps the most recognizable vortex on Earth.

Stonehenge - There are various theories as to who actually constructed Stonehenge, a huge circular monolith located on Salisbury Plane in England. Going back many hundreds of years, we know that the Druids used it for their religious ceremonies and that it acts as a huge sundial and calendar. Tourists flock here especially during the equinox to have their vibrations lifted. Some have reported “missing time,” voyages out of the body. A rather new phenomenon associated with the region around Stonehenge is the unexplained appearance of crop circles consisting of mysterious, compelling designs that appear overnight in fields of grain in the same area in the form of circles, intricate geometric symbols and glyphs. (In the UK, they're actually known as “corn circles.”) For a long time one of the best spots to see a UFO was in the nearby town of Warminister, where nightly skywatches were organized.

Mount Shasta – For the more adventuresome who are willing to go out on their own and disappear from society for a while. Lemurians and survivors of other "Lost Civilizations" are said to roam the mountain freely and occasionally wander into town to trade gold for supplies. A strange race of “little people” appear at night to collect edibles and return to their secret cavern homes. Native Americans residing in the backwoods say they have not only heard the screams of Bigfoot, but have seen these hairy creatures close-up! Here, some have claimed to have visited Telos, the capitol of the Inner Earth occupied by the Ascended Masters of Wisdom. There are also accounts of miraculous healings, including those by folks whose eyesight has been regenerated after being struck by mysterious blue beams of light coming from inside the mountain.

Mojave Desert – Stretching for hundreds of square miles, the Mojave Desert is said to draw UFOs like a magnet. Many of the early reports of meeting with human-looking aliens took place in spots like Joshua Tree and at Giant Rock, one of nature’s largest standing rocks where crystal partials are imbedded, increasing the proper cosmic vibrations suitable for contact with other dimensions. Many ghost towns dot the area, left over from when prospectors flocked to the region in a frenzy for gold. There are chilling tales of abandoned mines, mysterious creatures, spook lights and even a haunted Opera House in the middle of Death Valley. One of the most scenic settings in the world, Mother Nature offers all the complements necessary for peaceful trance-like states or for channeling.

Romania’s Hoia-Baciu Forest - There is even a magical forest in Romania. The Hoia-Baciu Forest is, for sure, one of the country’s most famous locales, where a series of inexplicable phenomena have been investigated and analyzed. It is called “the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania.” As one website (juliasromaniaguide.com/hoiabaciuforest/) explains it, “The Hoia-Baciu Forest keeps on being fascinating, especially because of what the witnesses say about the strangest physical sensations, the lights in the middle of the night, the shapes, forms, the strange appearances of human faces, the voices and the different colors. The place has shortly become famous among the paranormal and esoteric events specialists, entire teams of famous scientific explorers from Germany, France, USA and Hungary visiting the Hoia-Baciu Forest even during the Communism and managing to catch some inexplicable phenomena.”

We hope this brief check list will wet your appetite for more information on the subject of natural Stargates and portals to other dimensions. There could be a spot near where you live that can evoke a spiritual or mystical experience. Mountainous regions like those at Brown Mountain, North Carolina and the Andes of Peru can trigger something within you - you just have to go looking for it.

Source: League of Western Fortean Intermediatists
http://forteanswest.com/lowfiguesteditorial-TimBeckley0511.php

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UFO sightings are becoming more frequent in Finland. UFO enthusiasts catch glimpses of hundreds of unidentified objects annually, but most of them turn out to have a logical explanation. Ufologists doubt that the armed forces are concealing information about their own sightings.

A typical UFO sighting involves noticing a bright light moving strangely across the sky in the dark. Hardly anything else can be said to describe the phenomenon, says Lasse Ahonen from the UFO-Finland organisation.

Ufology has been Ahonen’s hobby for the last 46 years. A mere photo is not enough proof for him.

“We always need basic information about the pictures. The internet is full of mere images.”

Planets and debris

There have been considerably more UFO sightings in Finland in recent years. The two organisations in this field, Finnish UFO Research Association FUFORA and UFO Finland, yearly receive some three hundred reports of sightings altogether.

An airplane’s lights or a planet might cause strange light phenomena. Sometimes no further explanation is needed than debris in a camera’s lens. Ufologists say that a natural explanation is found for most cases.

However, a few remain unsolved. Some UFO enthusiasts believe that visits from aliens account for some of them.

“At this stage, all options should be kept in mind and kept open,” Ahonen says.

Conspiracy theories

Several countries have lately published formerly classified official data on UFO sightings. Similar data is also collected in Finland, where explanations made by officials are stored in the war archive. Atso Hapaanen has written a book on the military sightings of UFOs in 1933-1979 on the basis of this data.

UFO enthusiasts disagree on whether the military—and especially the air forces—in possession of any newer material.

“I don’t believe that the Air Force has any UFO maps,” says Björn Borg, researcher from FUFORA.

Borg is also sceptical that the Air Force would conceal anything about it. Ahonen’s opinion differs.

“I consider it very likely that there is observational data,” he says. “Would it not be time for the Finnish defence forces to also move on to the 2000s and follow other countries’ example by opening up more about this,” he inquires.

YLE has also turned to the Air Force for answers, but the Air Force said there were no secrets about sightings.

Chief Public Information Official Joni Malkamäki said that the Air Force checks up on citizens’ observations about 2-4 times a year. According to Malkamäki, information usually comes in about strange light phenomena and less frequently about objects.

“These findings usually fall under atmospheric phenomena, such as meteorites and space debris burning in the atmosphere.”

The Air Force says its own pilots have not seen any UFOs.

Soruce: YLE
http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2011/05/ufo_sightings_on_the_rise_in_finland_2579030.html